Sunday, 15 December 2013

Saved by touch move

Street Chess got off to a tough start yesterday (at least for me) when I found myself in the bottom half of the draw. As a result I needed more than my fair share of luck to try and stay on the plus side of the scoreboard. It turned out I was helped by the touch move rule in not one two games, giving me wins in both cases.
The first case is shown in the diagram to the right. I was playing Black, and in the position played Qg6+. The idea was to play lots of checks, pick up a few white pawns and see whether I could get anything more than a draw. However after the check on g5 my opponent followed through with his intended move, which was Rxh6+. While this is obviously illegal, it also had the unfortunate side effect of requiring him to move the rook to block the check. As this lost a rook on the spot he resigned.
In the second case (not shown), I had captured a piece on a6 (I was white), and my opponent captured with the rook. After I attacked to rook on a6 it retreated to a8. I then built up an attacking position on the kingside, which my opponent decide to avoid with O-O-O. However, as the rook had moved to a6 and back this was illegal, and my opponent had to play another king move. He could have castled kingside (this option was still legal), but fearing my play down the g file, chose Kf8 instead. This did not help and my attack soon brought home the point.